Howdy! I've decided that maybe I should write out the Villainous Cookbook in a bit more professional format, and I might rework some of my previous villains to work in this sort of framework too if possible. Instead of just talking about the features that they will feature, I think it might be better to list them out here for the context so that the DM doesn't need to look through multiple PDFs to know what the villain can actually do.
In this installment, we're going to create a character specialized in following the breadcrumbs of truth that the party leaves behind, putting them together, and presenting them to the public. Nothing should stop the truth, not even the death itself.
Preface
- My goal is to make an interesting villain using the player options found in the official and homebrew rules of D&D 5th edition.
- The goal is not to make a villain who deals the highest amount of damage. This is not the right place for that discussion.
- I will leave some details out to let the DMs adjust the villain to their preferences. Ability scores are one of them.
- To emulate character development, I will only make character builds at levels 4, 10, 16, and 20. Players should be at best equal to the villain's tier, optimally at a lower tier.
- Limitations breed creativity. But I will bend the rules if it makes the villain more interesting.
- If it seems overpowered, it could be because of rulebending (see the point above), or because I'm mixing homebrews that were not balanced with each other in mind.
The Truth Bringer
"In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act." |
| When the slander is your job, you could use a mask. And a way of coming back too while at it. Faeries, by Taras Susak |
Ingredients List
- Autumn Sylvicine race (Genuine Fantasy Press)
- Cleric 17: Secrets Domain (Yorviing's Homebrew)
- Druid 2: Circle of the Cloud (Manual of the Ancient Internet)
- Warlock 1: Gray Portrait (CoFS:A)
Tier 1
The Truth Bringer is a rather simple one to pull off. In Tier 1, we take 2 levels of druid, 1 level of warlock, and 1 level of cleric. With this, our character is already capable of "back-ups" that let them overcome death with little to no troubles. I'd personally give them an Acolyte background, or a different one that grants them free services.
Bound to the Portrait
(1st-level Gray Portrait feature)
At 1st level, you create and magically bind yourself to your Gray Portrait. The Gray Portrait is a Small or Medium object that weighs at least 15 pounds, has AC 15, hit points equal to four times your warlock level, resistance to all damage, and uses your statistics for saving throws. It can be repaired at a rate of 1 hit point per minute. You can choose to see through the Portrait’s eyes at any time and are always aware of its current state. If your portrait is destroyed, you tirelessly construct another during your next long rest, and you gain no benefit from that long rest.
If a spell has the sole effect of restoring you to life, such as revivify, the caster can cast the spell on the portrait as though it were your whole corpse without using material components, causing you to step forth from your portrait. However, if your portrait is destroyed and you are dead, you can’t be revived without the use of the wish spell.
You can use your action to cure yourself of any effect that is causing you to be poisoned, diseased, cursed, blinded, or deafened, sending the affliction to appear on your portrait. You can’t do this if it is destroyed.
Backed Up
(2nd-level Circle of the Cloud feature)
Also at 2nd level, if you are restored to life (but not undeath) by a spell such as raise dead, all of the equipment that you were wearing, carrying and holding at the moment of your death is teleported onto your person, to the exact same places where they were at the moment of your death.
With this combination of features, the bringer can be revived for free, even being brought back with all of their equipment. With the free services provided by the temple that they serve, say... the temple of your preferred god of truth, this means that they can be revived any number of times, as long as there's a priest capable of reviving who lives there, and they got a spell slot for the revival. Determining whether they're alive or in need of revival could be told possibly by the portrait itself, or some homebrew common magical item.
As a sylvicine, they gain the benefits of Fey Ancestry, which translates to an advantage on saving throws against being charmed, as well as the Candor.
Candor. You can choose to tell the truth even when an effect, spell, or other mental compulsion would cause you to speak a lie.
This curious ability allows them to spread the actual unaltered truth, regardless of the magic and effects that they're affected by. After checking with Genuine though, he said that this doesn't work when the target is affected by modify memory spell, and believes what they're saying is true. That's a shame, so let's hope their memories won't get overwritten in the future.
A small extra worth mentioning is the knowledge of Druidic language, as well as Anonymous feature: a Wild Shape alteration that lets the bringer take on a form of someone they have seen within last month, mostly for investigation purposes but also possibly for benefiting from their racial boons.
Anonymous
(2nd-level Circle of the Cloud feature)
Starting at 2nd level, you can use your action while you're not underground or indoors to expend a use of your Wild Shape feature and take on the appearance of another humanoid that you've seen within the last month as per the alter self spell. You gain a number of temporary hit points equal to two times your druid level, and all of the racial benefits of the target short of the ability score increases.
You can choose to envelop your equipment in illusory magic, altering it to fit your new form. Any such piece of illusory equipment holds up to physical inspection, provides no new mechanical benefits, and disappears if it is more than 5 feet away from you at the end of your turn.
Finally, if the creature you've transformed into is alive, it must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw. On a failure, you know the distance to and direction of this creature while transformed, unless it is on another plane of existence.
These benefits last until you lose all of the temporary hit points, until you use your Wild Shape again, or for a number of hours equal to half your druid level (rounded down).
I'm gonna skip the other details for now because the gist of this build isn't so important that I must mention them. However, do make sure to get Insight and Perception proficiencies one way or another.
As usual, in this phase the bringer is in the background, gathering details and training. No need to even bring them up in the game itself.
Tier 2
Seven levels of cleric get us several spells, as well as the Channel Divinity: Uncover and Clandestine Casting features. Uncover is rather useful for finding out stuff about the people who the bringer is interacting with at the moment, and Clandestine Casting is awesome for
Channel Divinity: Uncover
(2nd-level Secrets Domain feature)
At 2nd level, you can use your Channel Divinity as an action to uncover one's deepest secrets. One creature of your choice that you can see within 30 feet of you must make a Charisma saving throw. A creature immune to being charmed automatically succeeds on its save. On a failed save, you magically learn one fact or secret about the target, choosing one of the following:
- Something that angers it.
- Something that frightens it.
- The target's greatest desire.
- The GM provides you with one secret about the target, or one that the target knows, related to a recent event that looms large in your mind.
Regardless of whether it succeeds or fails, the creature is unaware of your attempt to unveil one of its secrets. Once you learn one of the creature's secrets, or if the creature succeeds in its initial saving throw against this effect, you can't use this feature on that creature again until you finish a long rest.
Clandestine Casting
(6th-level Secrets Domain feature)
By 6th level, your skills in subtlety have advanced such that even your magic can be done in secret. When you cast a spell, you can use your bonus action to attempt to pass the casting off unnoticed. Make a Dexterity (Stealth) check opposed by the passive Wisdom (Perception) score of each creature that can see or hear you. A creature can use its reaction to instead oppose your check with its own Wisdom (Perception) check. Each creature you succeed against doesn't notice you performing the spell's components. If you are hidden from a creature and succeed against it, you remain hidden from it after casting the spell.
Not much else to say here other than spells, and I'd like to skip those for now.
Tier 3
Divine Intervention, and adding Wisdom modifier to cantrips' damage. Both of these are neat, but I won't bother you with details here, let's get to something more exciting.
Tier 4
We reach the capstone by hitting the 17th level of cleric. And let me tell you, this would make the truth bringer quite a foe for a party that would try to seek it or hide from it.Sub Rosa
(17-th level Secrets Domain feature)
By 17th level, nothing is hidden from you, and you have mastered the art of secrecy. You gain truesight out to a range of 30 feet, and your thoughts can't be read by telepathy or other means, unless you allow it. You also can't be targeted by divination magic, perceived through magical scrying sensors, or detected by abilities that can sense creatures.
So in a nutshell, we get immunity to mind-reading, divination magic, ... and a 30 ft. range truesight. Well then, isn't that lovely! Truesight is actually something that's extremely useful for someone who seeks truths, and the rest is just perks from the job.
Spells, Feats, and the One Weakness
When it comes to the spells, what you're looking for are tools that make you better at finding information, spreading it, and avoiding conflict.- Information gathering is easily done with detect magic, detect thoughts, zone of truth, suggestion, speak with dead, legend lore, commune, locate object and locate creature, tongues, hex, and possibly more.
- Spreading the information can be done with sending, skywrite, message, enthrall, and more.
- Avoid the conflict using spells like misty step or dimension door for escape, or calm emotions or sanctuary for stopping the attackers.
How about the feats? Ritual Caster would be nice since the bringer has plenty of time for research. Observant is amazing for raising your passive Perception/Investigation through the roof, and so is Skill Expert. Some of the eldritch invocations like Eyes of the Rune Keeper or Beast Speech could be useful, so Eldritch Adept is on the table. Keen Mind could be a nice flavorful thing to have, while Linguist could be something that I'd even give out for free (after all, maybe they're learning languages during all that traveling they're doing while tracking their targets and searching for the dirt to dig up). For the last thing on our list, we might want to pick up one of the psionic feats from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, but that depends on whether you want to get rid of their biggest weakness.
The Truth Bringer is rather good at searching for the facts and sharing them. But what if they are manipulated into remaining silent? What if their memories get changed? It might be a good idea to find some way to make them immune against being charmed. While you could make up a homebrew item, there's an official one that could work. Greater Silver Sword (found in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, page 89) requires attunement by a person with psionics. While they hold the sword, they gain immunity against being charmed, as well as advantage on all Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma saving throws. A little extra on top is a resistance to psychic damage. Then there's something with cutting silver cords and instakilling others, but let that be a surprise for the player who gains the sword later. For the purposes of just keeping this villain sensible, I'd say that it's fine if they keep the sword in its sheath and just hold its handle to gain the benefits, interrogations while pointing the blade at a person wouldn't come off as exactly friendly. Of course, this whole step is up to you. After all, maybe you do want your players to find out about this one weak spot that the villain has.
To Reveal the Facts
One of the people whom I secretly consider my GM mentors has taught me an important lesson. You see, the world of your game doesn't have to exist only when you're running it. It can develop and evolve on its own, even outside of players' sight. This is exactly what the truth bringer needs in order to function properly.
The truth bringer is someone who's ordered to find a target, and spread truthful rumors of their wrongdoings. Whether it's a measly group of adventurers, a priest of opposing faith, a revolutionary group, an inventor who wants to change the world for the better, an artist who's nasty to others, or even a king himself, this person will search for any clues as to what bad things they could have done, and announce them publicly to everyone, possibly even while pretending to be that person if they wish to go that far.
One of the first things you should consider when involving the truth bringer in your world is: When and where do they start with their search? They'll try their best to follow the players' footsteps, learning about them more information and filtering it to paint the worst picture of them wherever they go. Consider how fast they could be. Surely they could afford a mount of some kind if the players have one. When they lose track of the players, maybe they could use one of their information-gathering spells to seek them. Along the way, they'll seed the nasty facts about the party, thus turning the people there against the players if they ever decide to come back.
Why are they doing this? Is it their faith telling them that truth is the only way and that people should be punished for sins they do not apologize for? Does their religious order pick their targets, their deity, or do they choose one themselves? What would it take for the bringer to stop following the players? Death doesn't stop them, quite contrary—if the players dare to kill the truth bringer while they're surrounded by people, this will only prove them right and paint the players as bad people who kill people they find unpleasant.
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| Chances are that the truth bringer isn't all that interested in moral justice either. Maybe they just have someone who's an actual enemy of the party who wished to smear their name by a professional. Gleaming Regalia, by Iain McCaig |
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